Badges mark quoted or attributed material (Qur'an, hadith, another author, an opposing view). Unbadged passages are Maulana Wahiduddin Khan's own words.
THE IMPORTANCE OF CLEANLINESS
Cleanliness for a believer is a form of worship. The faith of a believer is a guarantee that when he is physically clean, he is also able to purify his soul.
A believer attaches great importance to cleanliness. First of all, belief or faith makes his soul pure. Consequently, his appearance also becomes clean. His thinking based on faith makes him a lover of cleanliness.
A believer daily washes his hands, feet and face five times a day to say his prayers. Daily, he takes bath at least once to cleanse the whole body. His dress, although simple, is always washed clean.
He loves cleanliness and always tries to keep his house clean. Therefore, he cleans his house daily, keeps things in order, and rids his house of anything which could give off a bad smell. All these things become a part and parcel of his daily lifestyle. A believer is not happy unless everything is kept clean.
This desire for cleanliness is not limited to just one’s body and one’s home, but extends to one’s entire neighbourhood. The believer wants the whole environment to be clean where he resides. He takes extra care that he and his family members should not dirty the environment around their home. This is the training that he gives to others. He does not rest content until he is able to have clean surroundings in his neighbourhood.
Cleanliness is just cleanliness for a person. But for a believer, cleanliness is a form of worship, because he knows that God loves people to be clean.
Furthermore, the faith of a believer is a guarantee that when he is able to be clean physically, he is also able to purify his soul. As such when he is purifying himself, he prays, “O God, clean not just my body but also my soul.” Such a prayer becomes a means of purifying the soul.